Solitude. Or the Effect of Occasional Retirement on the Mind, the Heart, General Society, in Exile, in Old Age, and on the Bed of Death: In which the Question is Considered, Whether it is Easier to Live Virtuously in Society, Or in Solitude, 2. köide

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Vernor and Hood, 1799
 

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Page 24 - But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love.
Page 45 - He buried there, in solitude and silence, his grandeur, his ambition, together with all those vast projects which, during half a century, had alarmed and agitated Europe ; filling every kingdom in it, by turns, with the terror of his arms, and the dread of being subjected to his power.
Page 176 - ... this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Page 146 - In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected ; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth.
Page 176 - In form and moving how express and admirable ! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, — no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Page 20 - Guilt is the source of sorrow ! 'tis the fiend, The avenging fiend, that follows us behind, With whips and stings. The blest know none of this, But rest in everlasting peace of mind, And find the height of all their heaven is goodness.
Page 172 - The powers of man; we feel within ourselves His energy divine; he tells the heart, He meant, he made us to behold and love What he beholds and loves, the general orb Of life and being; to be great like him, Beneficent and active.
Page 66 - ... modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently- the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify ; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to please and delight even those who were the objects of it.
Page 112 - The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast : Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue ; Wild wit, invention ever new, And lively cheer of vigour born ; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly th
Page 24 - For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation, such as is found to have been falsely and...

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